Electronic devices such as televisions and personal computers (PC) require a control system that includes a user interface system. Typically, a user interface provides information to a user and simplifies use of the device. One example of a user interface is an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) in a television system.
An EPG is an interactive, on-screen display feature that displays information analogous to TV listings found in local newspapers or other print media. In addition, an EPG also includes information necessary for collating and decoding programs. An EPG provides information about each program within the time frames covered by the EPG which typically ranges from the next hour up to seven days. The information contained in an EPG includes programming characteristics such as channel number, program title, start time, end time, elapsed time, time remaining, rating (if available), topic, theme, and a brief description of the program's content. EPGs are usually arranged in a two-dimensional table or grid format with time information on one axis and channel information on the other axis.
Unlike non-interactive guides that reside on a dedicated channel and merely scroll through the current programming on the other channels for the next 2 to 3 hours, EPGs allow viewers to select any channel at any time during some period into the future, e.g., up to seven other channels for the next 2 to 3 hours, EPGs allow viewers to select any channel at any time during some period into the future, e.g., up to seven days forward. Further EPG features include the ability to highlight individual cells of the grid containing program information. Once highlighted, the viewer can perform functions pertaining to that selected program. For instance, the viewer could instantly switch to that program if it is currently being aired. Viewers could also program one touch video cassette recording (VCR) or the like if the television is properly configured and connected to a recording device. Such EPGs are known in the art and described, for instance, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,353,121; 5,479,268; and 5,479,266 issued to Young et al. and assigned to StarSight Telecast, Inc.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 5,515,106, issued to Chaney et al., and assigned to the same assignee of the present invention, describes in detail an exemplary embodiment including data packet structure necessary to implement an exemplary program guide system. The exemplary data packet structure is designed so that both the channel information (e.g., channel name, call letters, channel number, type, etc.) and the program description information (e.g., content, title, rating, star, etc.) relating to a program may be transmitted from a program guide database provider to a receiving apparatus efficiently.
Also, as discussed in the Chaney patent, it is envisioned that various types of programs will be available to users, including, for example, video and audio program, audio-only program, video-only program or data type program such as an executable computer program or email. In order to uniquely identify the different types of programs mentioned above, a “class” field, for example, is designated in the program guide packet structure to indicate the type of program to be transmitted. The “class” field may be, for example, “audio-video”, “audio”, “video” or “data”, corresponding respectively to the types of programs described above.
D1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,585,866, discloses a receiver capable of receiving both an audiovisual and an audio-only program. The receiver in D1 is able to play a received audio-only program while displaying non-moving, associated program text data on the receiver's display. Of course, various methods for generating graphics, including animated graphics, on a display are well know in the art. For example, various methods are disclosed in D2, an article by Richard G. Shroup, entitled “Color Table Animation,” in the Proc. Of Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interact. Tech. (SIGGRAPH '79), 6th; Chicao, Ill., USA, Aug. 8–10, 1979, Vol. 13, no. 2, August 1979, pages 8–13, XP002075128, Comput. Graphics (ACM) August 1979. However, references D1 and D2 either alone or combined, do not teach or suggest that it is desirable to display pre-stored animated pictures either automatically or in response to a user request, when an audio-only program is activated. The animated picture may serve as additional entertainment to a user and/or function as a screen saver to prevent screen burn.